Keeping Livestock on the Frontier - Wattle Fence Build
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2022
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So if that's just a really big chicken basket, does that mean when the chickens lay eggs, all your eggs will be in one basket?
😂
😂🤣
But... They say "don't put all your eggs in one basket" so... Multiple chicken baskets?
This is the single funniest comment on UA-cam!!
Who’s dad are you
My grandpa swore by this type of fence. He said money was hard to come by during the depression and metal was rationed during the war and on the farm there were lots of scrub trees to use...and they were free
matter of time until they tax the shrubs, i assure you.
@@theterribleanimator1793 they know that would never go over so they will/would fine you for unsafe or not allowed structure. And demand you remove/ replace it with the expensive stuff.
@@theterribleanimator1793 What are you another one of those anti-government ,paranoid, dipsticks. It's always "they" isn't it? Don't like it here, move to to russia. You might like it better there.
@@crystald3655 You can go with him.
A saying my old summer-camp coworkers and I used to use; “If it’s free, it’s for me.”
Of course we’d use it in regards to the food they gave us.
I know of a fellow who built a wattle fence and used green willow for the uprights. They rooted and grew. Amazing.
Thats pretty cool
Thats awesome. Also provides shade for the birds and helps conceal the girls from arial predators. My aunts homestead had an issue last year with a bird of prey picking off some of her younger egg layers.
I cut down an oak tree to make uprights recently. Three of the four died as expected and one sprouted leaves and started growing! So I’ve been watering it and it keeps growing! I hope it survives the winter I’d love to see how it grows more
Coppicing is a long lost art and was vital for thousands of years for building and making so many things. Great to see it in use.
We use it here a great deal . We have hazel to work with ❤️
Yeah it's super common still in the UK.
It was never really something that became traditional in America, I think mostly because of the sheer volume of timber available to colonists.
My family used it to keep useful sized poles on hand. Its easy and something the kids can do
Modern term is SUCKERS. In my city you can recieve a Citation for: "Suckers growing out of the base of a tree.' Yes, that is an ACTUAL ARTICLE. I know this personally 🤬
I've read cosping trees during Medieval / Ren periods gave basketmakers their weaving resources.
My City also mandated EVERY ASH TREE in the city parkways to be cut down. I had two 40year old healthy ash trees , VIBRANT & HEALTHY that were chopped down and stumps bored out!.
My car had been parked in total soothing shade now it gets parked in blistering S/SW sun !
Chickens? Chickens! They are great to have on a farm. Chickens eat pretty much everything, and besides meat and eggs they produce valuable fertilizer that you can use in vegetable garden.
However, Jon!
Since you are adding livestock, you should think about ways to preserve the produce. With winter coming, building an ice house to store meat, dairy and eggs would be a good idea. If you manage to finish it before winter, you can make a stockpile of ice for next summer.
Building the ice house, filling it with ice from the lake, then showing how to preserve food inside would make for an excellent, informative mini-arc for Homestead videos.
Also, with ice house on hand you can make homemade ice cream! 😍
Its Indiana. There would never be enough ice for him to do that.
yuck, lake ice.
Please ask him to build us an ice house!
@@embreyd4e686 I bet there will be at some point in the winter
@@pineappleparty1624 this is the 1700s remember 😂
As an southeast Asian, I'm pretty jealous that they can do this, every tree in my country is full with fly and ant that fight back, it's not pleasant thing when you try taking down the bush, good video 😂
Probably the real reason East Asians did all their wattling with bamboo despite having plenty of better trees for it.
@@MogofWar oh yes, bamboo is miracle "log" it's basically can do anything from building, cooking and infrastructure, my culture used bamboo a lot too
Same here, in hawaii we got little fire ants which cover you now. Didn't have them not long ago.
A few years back, I build a fence just like this around my fire pit - it really helps keep the heat in on cold nights, and is still in good condition. I used alder that grows back. When the fence needs work, I will use what grew back from the original root system.
If you have hawks active in the area, you may want to string up some rope or twine across the top of the enclosure to make it harder for them to get the the chickens. The addition of a rooster will also provide some extra defense if a hawk does come visiting.
Who does this music? It is outstanding! Here in Virginia (and many places in the South) a willow branch will root and grow if inserted into the soil and kept wet enough (summer rain is often enough) and the wattle fence willow "posts" will grow and eventually have to be thinned, which can be used to replace older horizontal wattle stands.
That's how they do them in England!
The music in the background is by jim's red pants, you can find them on spotify
I cant get anything to sprout here. I planted raspberry sprouts which should have rooted but none did. (I keep the ground wet).
@@dreamwalker2518 Thanks!
@@dreamwalker2518 I'm so glad I looked at this thread 😆 I am following it now.
So much cozier feeling than chicken wire. Looks like home! Great job.
There's a house near my son's old school that has a lovely wattle fence sectioning off the part of the front yard closest to the house from the rest. It has an archway with a gate all made from more wattling. I will sometimes go out of my way to go past it.
And that was a very nice little Barred Rock pullet sitting on your lap at the end, Jon. I love the gentle chirps the younglings make.
Wattle fence is not only practical but beautiful! You can make short ones for a low garden edging. (On my list of things to do!😉)
@@amysbees6686
Be careful what you choose to do it with! When we first moved in, I cleared out the line of forsythia bushes in the chosen area for a garden. I made low wattle fencing (8-10") around the new garden beds using the cut forsythia branches. I didn't expect it to last more than a year or so. The weavers broke down as expected, but the uprights took root! So more forsythia eradication needed.🤣
I like how the chicken at the end matched Jon's shirt.
I like how it checked him for bugs.
I like how Jon decided to do the closing monologue with a little chicken sidekick.
I was out walking today and noticed a bumper crop of hickory nuts around. It brought to mind a possibility for a subject for your channel. Pawcohiccora is a porridge made from hickory nuts by the Algonquin Indians.
An interesting thing is oaks will do what ash would. In Japan, they have a practice of harvesting oak, where they leave an oak stump handy for a few years, then cut down what sprouts from it.
I think that is called "pollarding", by the old europeans.
Reminds me of the Tudor Monastery series when Tom and Peter had to build fencing for their pigs.
Love that series!
Yeah, love that series... all the series of different eras. Not a fan of Tom though, I would have preferred Alex to be in that one as well. Ruth, Peter, and Alex are a great team.
@@kellywhite9299 Tom was great in Secrets of the Castle though because he brought in a bunch of the military history. So if you want to see Ruth make armor and the boys play with crossbows and catapults, not bad!
I loved the Wartime Farm series where the WWI-era farmers were cut off from exports and had to research medieval ways to make their farm happen
Our kids just finished their second year raising chickens for 4-h.
Nice!
This might be a bit anecdotal, but from where my farming family came from in Southern England, the woven mobile panels used for livestock pens were called "Waddles". When they came to Australia in the late eighteenth century, they constructed them from the local trees that we know call Wattyls (Acacia). Might be a coincidence, but a Waddle and a Wattyl sound pretty similar.
They named the tree after the type of material it was initially used for- wattle. It's fairly common in colonised places.
In Northern VA we have this “devil” of a tree called the locust. When young it has great thorns and it’s flexible. Somewhat. Good for fencing if you want but mostly it’s annoying. Once grown and matured it virtually indestructible. Black locust for fence posts will outlast a generation I think.
When they're old they have thorns too. They were the bane of my dad's existence. In our area, they shoot up quickly but only live 10 or 15 years, then die and rot from the top. Those spikey branches blow down in storms. They have a beautiful, sweet-smelling cream bunch of flowers that bloom in the spring.
Locust will last.
Depending on where you are there is also Osage.
Another thorny tree known for its rot resistance. (also known as Hedge)
Hedge posts last a long time.
As a side note because I want to be manly I tried to fell a locust using a good and sharp ax. I’m not sure who won that battle. My shoulders gave out. The ax edge gave out. Eventually the locust gave out. Thank goodness that I am a home brewer. The beer replenished.
@@qgc3426 Black locust is probably one of the hottest firewoods you will ever get.
It may not have the total BTU's of hickory, but it will get your stove glowing and melt the grates if you're not careful.
Ok so I’m going to impose my thought onto this thread which are not relevant to it. Since I may perhaps gotten your ear. How about a series documenting roads and byways. You made a homestead. How about explaining how the routes were made between such back in that time. Were they well worn paths or did they need help? Franklin surveyed the first route I think but the road infrastructure to me is fascinating.
I got backyard chickens during the first Covid lockdown and now I'm obsessed. I was recently telling someone my fantasy job would be a chicken history interpreter at someplace like Colonial Williamsburg. And then Iearned that's actually a real job. I need to move to VA.
You are giving us a blueprint for going off grid and surviving what is to come , thank uou.
lol
@Uncle Charlie if society collapses, power plants fail, and nuclear weapons are raining down, a chicken coop won't matter at all. This prepping stuff is a fantasy for a specific type of nerd, but the best thing you could do would be build a bomb shelter and pack it with food and seeds, but even that is extremely dubious. Hey, if you want to support local contractors, go for it, they would appreciate the business.
Love how your homestead is coming together. Life was much harder back then but I believe it was much simpler. After all the crazy hub bub of life now your programs always make me homesick for a simpler life, even if the work was harder. Thank you for the peace your programs bring. God Bless you and all your help.❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤
Oh My Gosh, John looks SO CUTE with that little gray bird sitting on his knee! Just so adorable!
I think Mom called hers "Domineckers"...
Bared Plymouth Rocks, one of the best dual purpose heritage breeds of chickens around. We have 4 in our flock
Making a really really big chicken basket.
The only time I've heard of chickens and baskets is when they're cooked and served in a basket with chips (French fries for the American viewers).
If I may make a suggestion. When making the point, try holding the post at an angle, and swinging the axe straight up and down. I think you will have fewer glancing blows that way.
I'd suggest using a hammer, those axe glancing blows look very scary.
Seems like you have additional hands on the homestead that are appearing more regularly. I hope for more character development in the future :)
100% this. Seems like they have their own 18th century stories to tell!
You guys are really blessed with a great property. So fun to watch you add on capability to your homestead. I can't imagine the behind the scenes issues you had to deal with -- building permits? Safety inspections? Another superbly made, entertaining and educational video. THANK YOU!!!
as long as whatever you build doesn't have a concrete foundation, you can label the structures on your land as "Non permanent" and you don't need any permits to keep them.
A very satisfying fence built.
Looks great, too...
So soothing to watch. So much knowledge of nature
Would be nice to see it taken next level with some mulberry trees planted around to give the chickens free forage.
Plus mulberry also grows little bunches of flexible branches everywhere it's cut. Completely natural coppicing. But nah, the chickens will have plenty of mosquitoes and flies to eat being that close to the pond.
If you have mulberry trees you can make silk because the silk worms eat mulberry leaves. Women in the US made their own silk in the 18th and 19th century in this way.
I'm not so sure this is great for chickens. Maybe pigs or something of that nature. My chickens flew 8 feet straight up into the rafters of their coop to sleep at night, certainly would have no trouble hopping a fence. Plus, they reliably return to a coop to sleep if left free to wander. Predators are going to be a problem also. I had to bury chicken wire 12" underground to stop raccoons from digging in. They would kill a dozen chickens in a night when they had the chance. Wouldn't even eat them, just kill as many as they could. Looks like you have a box there to lock them in at night which is good. I don't know how you would protect them at night in a period accurate way except to have a guard dog. I'd be interested if they used other techniques.
My grandma swore by planting thorny plants such as rose bushes and stinging nettles to discourage uninvited critters but each area is different
Sadly, I think you are correct. They'll probably be atop the fence before you know it. I'd love to know how they handled that back in the day.
Just clip the wing feathers and they can't fly over the fence. As for predators, the birds will roost in the coop at night. Just close the coop up after dark and open it in the morning.
You don’t just leave your chickens wandering loose in a pen at night- you always put them away in the coop, chicken house or a stall/ section of the barn. Everyone on the frontier would have had at least a couple horses or mules, and likely a few other livestock. You at least put the chickens away in a small coop or shed at night, else there’s no point to having chickens because you won’t have them long. Yes, if you want adult chickens to stay in the pen you clip their wings- but most of the time they can roam about the clearing safely in the daytime, especially if there are people and a watchdog outside. The pen would be good for chicks as they are learning to be outdoors and not wander away.
My chickens would fly the coop as well. I reminder my husband that the fence needed a roof to protect them from hawks during the day and to keep them in their fenced in area. The girls were always put up at night.
There was one day I came from work early to find the door wide open. Apparently the door wasn't latched closed and the wind blew it open. After searching the house, I went back to the dining room and found 4 of my chickens having a wonderful time.
There was never a dull moment with those girls.
So much work went into this, it’s amazing to see the passion you have.
Chickens are a daily activity. You gotta periodically remove waste from the pen, collect eggs, feed and water (more in winter bc the water will freeze over), protect them from predators, and let them out to pick for bugs (they’ll go nuts if they see an earthworm), and herd them back up into the pen to roost. They’re a lot of fun.
Why did the chicken cross the Townsends' homestead?
To get to the nutmeg side.
N U T
(meg)
Wood for bows back in England was farmed by coppicing trees so they create huge thickets of straight branches. There was a tremendous amount of forest management that took place during the Middle Ages because of how valuable the resources in them was to life back then.
That's a mighty fine chicken basket y'all have there.
Petition for chicken Livestream! Love your content Townsends your whole team is top notch!
I love your outfit! You could wear that today and be stylish as heck.
Something I love about wattle and other sorts of similar material is how universal it is in places where the local flora support it. The site of a chicken coop with a wattle fence could be just as familiar to say a Norse settler in Yorkshire as a British settler in the new world, or even an iron age farmer in their hillfort.
Good afternoon from Syracuse NY everyone thank you for sharing living history
Hello from over in Pine City NY! Have you learned any living history skills/practices? I keep chickens and ducks myself :)
Yes I have a garden and I am a hunter and fisherman and a 1754 survival camping skills teacher
That is very cool! When do you do classes? I might actually be interested
I'm a leader in the Royal Rangers ministry in my church on Fay RD. Syracuse NY. We have a 1754 re-enactment group which is part of the Royal Rangers ministry.
Aaah a re-enactment group! That explains the specific year. It doesn't seem like something I'd want to join, but it is always good to see people passing on those types of skills :)
I bet a ton of preppers have joined this channel in the last 2 years, a lot of skills ppl may need in future.
it's a good channel for prepping. If the world falls apart, we may return to the pre-industrial age, but there's no reason to fall back to the stone age. An 18th-19th century lifestyle is completely achievable even if all of our infrastructure fails, factories and power plants become inoperable, etc. There are no prerequisites for this lifestyle other than knowledge.
@@AngryAlfonse If some calamity so terrible occurs that all infrastructure, powerplants etc fail, you will have much bigger concerns than making a chicken coop.
@@EMCF_ correct. Those concerns would be food, water, and shelter. Then down the road when the initial calamity is over and people are trying to figure out how to survive long term, the concerns will be long term food, water and shelter. Chickens fall into the whole "long term food" part.
2 years you mean 6. But I’ve been watching for about 7.
My daughter keeps chickens. She finds they need protection from above because of predators. The hen house is not enough. It does need to be the whole area, but enough to make things easier for them to hide.
plus a fox could just squeeze in between some of those. you'd need to add more and press them down tightly. then maybe tie together the poles in the center like a wigwam.
What about badgers? From above it can be hawks but those will probably just grab one chicken and leave but a badger digging a tunnel under the fence can wreak havoc (more so if you impede your chicken from flying away to safety outside the fenced area).
@@LuisAldamiz I mean there's no defense against burrowing..
@@KairuHakubi - Modern chicken pens do or can (and should) have such defenses, which means 1m (3 feet) underground fencing, enough to dissuade the burrowers, and also sky fencing against hawks and such.
A good suggestion was made using thorny plants to make the fence. Low growing thorny plants, like shrub roses would make effective deterrent for rabbits. Badgers may require a different approach.
That's an awesome looking giant chicken basket. Simply Gorgeous. ❤❤❤❤❤
I've seen these built in Europe, as well as living walls\property boundaries built using young trees. Really interesting how well it works.
Do you mean a proper laid hedge with Hawthorne or blackthorn? Do people not lay hedges in America?
At least here in Britain, Hazel fencing has been used for millennia. It's more often used in bushcraft nowadays, but still a great alternative to stock fencing if you have the time and effort to build it.
Watching all these videos for my eventual homestead in the remote wilderness. Very insightful, even able to recreate smaller versions in my living room.
I made my deer blind last year by building it as a wattle type fence, but I put the branches closer together to make it harder to see through and then I used pine boughs to fill in for concealment so you couldn't see into it at all. It worked very well and didn't cost me a dime because I had to cut the brush down anyway to see where I wanted to hunt on the property.
I've heard of wattle and daub but not just wattle lol, I made a wind block in same design at my lean to at 1812
You were alive in 1812??? Wow! Do tell!
Coppicing is a very ancient practice, and one that we should all look into bringing back where we can. As shown here, the wood produced is a great resource. In Europe before "the war", woodsmen tended the wild places not because they were "environmentalists" but because the woods provided gobs of materials that were used to make things for the homes around the woods. Bodgers were men who'd go out, cut wood, and turn it into bowls, troughs, buckets, chairs, cabinets, fences, hurdles, etc. In short, it was local craftsmen providing goods and services for local customers. And that's what built great communities that had a culture specific to their location.
People drove the Bodgers out, basically, because they didn't think about the 2nd Order Effects of decisions they made - like supporting a new tax or regulation. Folks didn't think about how those things impact the small businesses, always adding up and driving up the costs of doing business.
Today, coppicing and pollarding is still done, but not on the scale it used to be. The result is that our wild lands are in worse health and prone to disease. Using the wood for more than fires in the winter is critical to bringing back the healthy status of the property, and often that means we have to go the "harder" way of doing something. Putting up some mass-produced wire fencing might seem cheaper and easier, but the 2nd Order Effects are costly, indeed!
Plus, the woven fence adds character and a rugged elegance to the property. I'd encourage folks to look up "bodger" on instagram or here on youtube to get a sense of just what beauty can be brought to the world with simple tools and a bit of generational knowledge.
Guinea fowl help keep the ticks away. Ducks for the garden bugs. A chicken can lay an egg a day. Very handy animals.
Thank you for sharing. Love learning about how people lived in the past. Would you consider doing a video on how people fed their livestock in the 18th century?
this channel is my happy place singled to have found it
That chicken in your knee at the end felt so at home and comfy with you she just decided that was a good place to be for a few minutes
If you had poplar in your area, I would imagine that that would work out well for fencing material for the chickens. This was another awesome video. Cheers! ✌️
It is an awesome video indeed!
@@rosemcguinn5301 It was. Cheers, Rose!
Livestock you say!? What about bees!? Fun fact we bought some knives from you for our kitchen and our sharpening guy loves them!! Fabulous fence. The chickens have a beautiful home. Nice woof too!
That is amazing. Well done, sir.
Awesome
Here is a video idea. You should talk about the prosthetics that the people used during that time and maybe make some of your own with your tools.
I think they just died
@@bradlauk1419 Nah mate. Early prosthetics were seen as big advances in science.
I have made some amazing things with weaping willow branches. They are the trees that never stop giving.
Really like this one. I love chickens and miss keeping some. The last coop I built had a small "chicken" gate that could be opened into the garden. Great for having the birds keep the insect pests down. You've never seen violence, I hope, like that of several hens going after tomato hornworms. Wow. But you do have to keep an eye on them. After they have exhausted the bug population they go after your veggies and you have to push them out of the garden. Back to egg laying!
As a life-long chicken keeper, this really intrigues me! I have to do this sometime!
The chicken house is just about the same proportions as the one I built in my back yard, 6' wide x 8' long, 8' high on one side and 4' high on the other.
I would close in around the bottom of the coop though. Knowing chickens, they'll figure out a way to go under there... and then you'll wonder why they aren't laying as many eggs as they used to. And you can't get under there to get the eggs!
In case anyone is wondering, Chicken Wire was invented in the early 1840s. Using "wattle" for structures dates back since the beginning of recorded human history. By the 18th century there were dozens of different chicken coop designs, including ones suspended from the ground (which look weird). But nothing really replaced the wattle fence concept until chicken wire, once the stuff started being mass produced in England. Wattle was used for building homes (walls), as well as erosion control and even ground leveling (including for early radar systems in WWII).
Not bad for some little sticks.
Love the videos from the homestead. Need more!
Black locust wood posts are what my grandfather used. They resist rotting and last forever, are a hard wood that grows quickly. Great for erosion control. And permaculture for revitalizing land. The black willow can be cut to grow dense coppices for the wattle the bark has the same base as used in aspirin and makes excellent charcoal for black powder for your flintlocks.
That is so cool. I have wanted to do a wattle fence as screen for years on part of our backyard... now i just might!
Those chickens don’t realise how good they have it 👍
I still remember seeing these wattle fences here in the Ozarks when I was a kid..
That's a nice fence. My wife and I built garden beds out of broadleaf maple chutes the same way. Never occurred to me it could be scaled up to make a fence.
I have been waiting to learn about this area. Thank you. I look forward to more.
Barbed wire is easy but it's dangerous for bats and other wildlife. I much prefer the woven walls. That's been the tech of choice since the iron age. Excellent video and discuss of the wood types needed. Thank you!!
Barbed wire is for a different application. Theres no comparison. This works fine for a little small area like a chicken run.
Been waiting a long time for another homestead video!
Loved the opening shot panning around all the projects, looked great.
Jon, you constantly amaze me with your knowledge. If only younger people today could learn this type of thing instead of being on their phones all the time.
Somehow, I doubt they would be on their phones learning this. 😃 I appreciate the laugh.
So inspirational!
I love how many useful prepping projects come from your channel ❤️
This is definitely something worth taking note of!!
So much hard work! I appreciate your dedication to sharing this time of life.
Add mud, and a roof, and you have an even older Mud and wattle hut, from way earlier in man's history. Nice enclosure. Likely just as good as a chicken wire fence, with a lower cost. And if you need to stop (Or at least slow down) a North wind, or something, adding some mud mixed with straw, or cow manure (Or, both) to the walls on the side that stops the wind, you could do so easily. You could also add a lean to shade if needed, to block the heat of the afternoon sun, using the same materials.
Farming, like soldiering, means "always upgrading what you have, to improve your position".
Was great to see overall view of the homestead and know how various episodes fit into the big picture. Love the 'behind the scenes' videos. Thank you!
Thanks for the video, always enjoy watching!
I love the idea of using what you have available.
Absolutely love your channel. Definitely watching more videos
That is something I'd like to make for my garden! Love the chickens too
I've been wanting to do wattle fencing for our garden and around our trees. Thank you for showing what type of trees are good to use. The homestead is shaping up nicely. I can't wait to see what you guys do next.
The little chickens made me smile :)
I hope that was a Dominique chicken on your lap sir! America's oldest breed
Thank u soooo much! I just moved onto my five acres of raw land three days ago and this is gonna help me so much for fencing in goats as well as another for chickens yaaaay
Looks fantastic! Love watching the homestead come together. Those chickens 🐓 are pretty lucky 🍀
As always another great video always happy to see what’s happening on the homestead
Here in the Philippines the farmers usually use Madre de cacao/Kakawate for fencing because the branches readily grow roots and then you have a live wall, with the bonus of the leaves being great livestock feed (for goats usually)
the chicken at the end was a very nice touch.
Great video, great channel.
Love the old ways. Keep it coming.
Living the dream, brother! May God keep blessing you and your family for your hard work.
Chickens are wonderful!
I recently discovered this channel and I love it.
Most wholesome channel to exist
It looks like you are holding a Dominique Chicken, in the thumbnail. Great breed of chicken. Oldest breed in America, very docile, great forager, dual purpose. I have 7 of them.👍😁
Love the technique and look, thank you for another quality video
YES I WAS SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SOMETHING LIKE THIS
ive always wanted to put a fence like this up before, but i was always kind of intimidated by the idea...but seeing you do it, made me realize its actually a fairly simple process. thank you
Those chickens are going to churn that little pen into a muck pit so fast lol.
It's a lot more work and materials, but if you're capable of it a series of pens that size wrapping around the coop that you can rotate the chickens to once a week or so is a lot better for them.
Saves on feed too since they are able to forage without scorching the earth in their enclosure lol
I grew up on a small holding poultry farm, about 50 laying hens at the best of times. What a fantastic episode to watch and reminiscence over dinner with. Thanks
Great work as always !! Keep going ! I really enjoy watcthing your videos, learned so much for myself about 18th century life !
Great job on the fence! I wish we could make this but all we have is a ton of Mesquite here on our property in southern Arizona. We did buy Ocotillo fencing recently to keep the rabbits and javalinas out of my plants but they are too spikey to make into a wattle fence! Our chickens have a very large fenced in area with triangles of wood at the corners for shelter from hawks. We also clip the primary feathers on one wing of our chickens to keep them from flying out of the pen. It works great and it does not hurt the chickens or prevent them from escaping hawks. Oh and we have a chicken palace we made with scrap wood, it turned out gorgeous and the girls have a ramp to get into the house.
At least with Ocotillo, you get flowers to eat.
@@erikjohnson9223 haha you're right!